Talley shuffled awkwardly. “She knows where you are. We called her as soon as we realized what happened.”
“She knows what? That I decided, despite my inability to get out of bed, I would go camping?”
“She knows you Shifted,” Jase answered. “She knows everything.”
That stopped me cold. “Everything?”
For quite possibly the first time in his life, Jase looked uncomfortable. “Everything.”
I worked hard to keep my voice controlled. “How long has she known everything?”
“I don’t know. Since my dad died? Since I was born?”
Of course she knew. Everybody was in on the secret. I don’t know how I managed to still feel betrayed by it all.
“And my dad?”
“She was supposed to tell him last night,” Talley answered. “Parents of Shifters are the only normal people who know about any of us.”
I tried to imagine how that conversation went. My practical, no-nonsense mother explaining to my just-the-facts-and-nothing-but-the-facts father that his daughter developed the ability to transform into a wild canine when the moon was full. I’m sure it went over really well.
“So, all those times you told her you were going camping or whatever, she knew what was really going on?”
“I guess. She wouldn’t talk to me about it. When I was old enough to be told I was a Shifter and start going out on full moons with the Pack, I tried to tell her where I was going and why, but she wouldn’t listen. She said, ‘You’re going to your grandmother’s to spend the night. Nothing more, nothing less.’ She wants to pretend like it isn’t real, like I’m normal.”
I could almost see the attraction of that attitude. My life had been completely turned upside-down by the discovery that Shifters existed. If I could go back to a simpler world, I would do it in a heartbeat, but I didn’t have that option.
“What do we do now?” I asked no one in particular.
Talley volunteered an answer. “Now we go back to my house. Mom and Gramma are cooking a huge breakfast - eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, pancakes, everything.” I thought about my last meal and shuddered. A raw rabbit? A defenseless little bunny, fur and all? “You need to eat, Scout. The Change burns about a million calories you’re going to have to replace.”
“So, we eat.” If I could get poor little Thumper out of my head long enough to work up an appetite. “And then?”
Her clear blue eyes met mine. “And then I don’t know.”
Chapter 4
Talley’s driveway looked like a car lot. I always assumed the Pack consisted of Jase, Charlie, Charlie’s dad, and Toby, Charlie’s annoyingly self-important brother. I never thought to include great-uncles and distant cousins.
My fingers dug into the upholstery of the passenger’s seat. No one said much during the fifteen minute car ride other than Talley asking if I was okay every thirty seconds. Maybe if I could have managed something besides a strangled choking noise she would have quit asking.
I spent the majority of the time trying to convince myself this was all a horrible nightmare or psychotic episode brought on by stress, pain, and fever, but seeing all those cars gleaming in the early morning light somehow undid all my hard work.
If there had been anything left in my stomach I would’ve thrown up again.
“Scout?” Jase’s fingers clutched my elbow. I gave yet another strangled choking noise in response. “Scout, you need to listen to me. This is important.”
I turned my head to find him leaning up between the driver and passenger seats. “When you go in there, whatever you do, don’t let them see your fear. You have to be strong, okay?”
The realization Jase was echoing what Alex said to me in my dreams was enough to get me back into speaking mode. “What? What did you say?”
Her jerked back, looking as shaken as I felt. “Shifters are different than other people. Fear is a sign of weakness, and weakness is worse than bad. You can’t let them think you’re afraid. If someone bullies you, you have to stand up for yourself. Think you can do that?”
“No.” Honesty is the best policy, right? “God, Talley, just take me home. I don’t want to be here.”
“Not an option,” came Charlie’s voice from the back seat. “You trespassed on Hagan territory.”
“I was in my back yard.”
“Doesn’t matter. Rules are rules.”
I literally felt like I might explode. Rules are rules? I just had one of the most traumatic events of my life and they were actually concerned about crap like borders and territory? And when did Charlie start caring about rules? He was the kind of guy who believed rules were made to be broken. In fact, he owned a t-shirt that said, “Rules are made to be broken.”
Talley looked down to where my fingernails attempted to rip the upholstery out of her car. “Are you mad?”
I answered with a glare.
“Good,” she said, shutting off the engine. “That means you’re not focused on being scared anymore.” Her door was open before I could even protest. “Let’s go.”
About a dozen different guys loitered on the Matthews’ front porch, and it sounded as if there were at least that many more inside. I could put a name to most of the faces, though I suspected many of them I had only met once or twice before.
The moment we got near the house all conversation stopped. I’ve been stared at my entire life, and not in the you’re-the-most-beautiful-girl-in-the-world way. My stares tended to be more of the hey-I-didn’t-know-the-circus-was-in-town variety. I’m what a nice person would call “unusual looking”. The hair hanging down nearly to my waist is a silvery blond, my skin is a pale ivory with no hint of a peach or pink undertone, and my eyes are the palest of azure blue, only one tiny step up from white on the color chart. But something told me these hard looks had nothing to do with my white-on-white-on-white color pallet.
“Does everyone already know?” I asked Talley quietly, although whispering was pretty pointless. They were all Shifters, and it was the morning after a full moon. Supernatural hearing was working at full force, a fact driven home by my pounding headache.
Talley nodded, head held high as she kept walking towards the mob. “Be strong,” she muttered so softly I knew it carried only the ears of those of us who walked alongside her.